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Monday, 10 December 2012

Hazelnut Espresso Thumbprint Cookies

Well, these are another winning recipe from the latest Canadian Living Holiday Baking Magazine! A coffee flavoured hazelnut cookie filled with hazelnut spread. Absolutely delicious and quite possibly a new favourite cookie for me, yes, they are that good! If you are like me and absolutely LOVE anything coffee and hazelnut flavoured, you will love these. The great thing about the recipe is it never called for eggs so besides the obvious use of vegan replacements these didn't need veganizing. As such I didn't change the recipe at all so won't be reprinting it here, just click on the link for the recipe. (I only reprint recipes if I've made substantial changes.)(Amusing side note - blogger just asked if by "veganizing" I meant "navel-gazing" - that would have been an embarrassing auto-correct!).The taste and texture of these cookies are just perfect. When I first tried one on it's own I thought it was good but possibly not sweet enough. Then I remembered that the cookie was made to house a little nutella in them so tried it again with some vegan nutella in and Oh.My.Word. Incredible. So yes, they need the nutella ;-) An altogether beautiful cookie.

Recipe notes:♥ I swapped the butter with vegan butter, I used Vitalite.♥ I used blanched hazelnuts and processed them in my food processor until as fine as they would get. They weren't like flour, just really finely chopped. I think this gave the best texture. I was also really lazy and didn't bother roasting them first. I'm sure that would have added even more flavour but just to let you know that if you are feeling lazy too there's no need to roast first ;-)♥ I used store bought vegan nutella. Here in Ireland Spar's own label Hazelnut spread is "accidentally" vegan. There are other brands out there that do specifically vegan hazelnut spread OR you can make your own, although I haven't tried this you can always trust the recipes at Seitan is my Motor.♥ Recipe said to use a teaspoon measure for the cookies. I thought these would be too small so used a measured tablespoon instead. Once they baked I thought, oh dear, these really are too big. Then I ate one and changed my mind ;-)♥ I piped the hazelnut spread in with a star tip and love the way that looks.♥ If you thinking of giving these as gifts, just keep in mind that the hazelnut spread in there makes these unable to stack or pack really well.

Roll the dough into a ball and place on a cookie sheet. I then used the round end of a knitting needle I have to make the indentation.

Once baked the hole does puff up a bit so make sure you make that indentation quite deep and large.

Wait until they are fully cool before filling with the hazelnut spread.

3 comments:

I already have such a long list with cookies to make for Christmas. I think I am going to kick something out for these. I love everything with hazelnuts. And they look so cute. P.S. Thanks for the shout out!